Excitement builds for Tulsa theater awards
By KAREN SHADE, 04/06/2009
Craig Walter (right) rehearses a scene from "The Bald Soprano" with Dale Sams, Billie Sue Thompson and George Romero at Tulsa's Nightingale Theater last year. Area stage companies soon will be vying for the Tulsa Awards for Theatre Excellence. JAMES GIBBARD/Tulsa World file
Apprehension and curiosity have given way to a rally of participation as the end of the theater season draws near and the Tulsa Awards for Theatre Excellence pushes closer to handing out $20,000 to local theater companies.
After the George Kaiser Family Foundation created the TATE Committee - a panel of unaffiliated stage arts professionals, theater educators, arts writers and other theater supporters - last summer, the committee announced the foundation will award prizes to local theater groups and companies to foster greater quality of nonmusical theater and to get the public excited to support it.
In the fall, we talked with a number of individuals linked with some of the most consistently present troupes active today. Some individuals expressed enthusiasm, while others looked with a more skeptical view of creating competition, albeit friendly, among groups that have begun to work together only in the past few years.
Shirley Elliott, TATE Committee president and Tulsa Performing Arts Center Trust program director, said that hesitance has gone.
"People are beginning to realize what they can do if they participated in these awards and were able to get a little money. Now, I think there's a lot of excitement," she said. "We haven't heard negative feedback."
The $20,000 will be broken into four awards: $10,000 for outstanding production of the 2008-09 Tulsa theater season, $5,000 for a first runner-up, $2,500 for second runner-up and $2,500 to outstanding children's production.
The judging
Nonprofit, nonprofessional theater companies and groups in operation for the last two years were invited to submit up to two nonmusical (children's theater excepted) productions for award consideration.
Three judges vetted by the TATE Committee are sent to the shows to watch and complete a ballot asking them to grade the play on the merits of direction, acting, script selection, set design, costumes, marketing and other critical points of production.
Elliott said the committee did its best to ensure the anonymous judges did not attend the same performances. Committee members also attend performances.
While the committee had discussed the option of not awarding a prize if it collectively agreed none of the entries met the level of "excellence," Elliott said that has changed. The $20,000 invested by the foundation will be awarded in its inaugural year.
"This money is going to do a lot for the theater community, and I anticipate once we go through one round of awards, a lot more groups are going to want to participate in this," Elliott said.
Trophy time
Adding to the buzz is the committee's open call for submissions from local artists for a winning design of the TATE trophy ultimately to be given to the top production.
The design winner will be announced May 1.
Elliott said the first awards will done with some flair. The ceremony is scheduled for June 21 at the downtown Summit Club, with a surprise celebrity guest waiting in the wings.
A little prestige and some much-needed funds are at stake. But Ken Busby, committee member and executive director of the Arts and Humanities Council of Tulsa, said the TATEs are having the intended effect.
"I think this has really gotten these local theater groups to think about what they're presenting, how they present it and how to put their best foot forward - not that they weren't before," he said.
"But now they're really thinking about their marketing materials, getting people to come to the theater ... It's all the things that we had hoped it would do."
The entrants
Thus far, five shows have entered the fray for the $10,000 prize:
"The Bald Soprano" and "The Lesson," presented as an evening of one-acts, from Theatre Club (November 2008)
"Master Class," Theatre Tulsa (November 2008)
"Matt and Ben," Theatre Pops (March 2009)
"Up the Down Staircase," Theatre Tulsa (March 2009)
"A Picasso," American Theatre Company, set to open at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center on April 23.
As of early last week, Nightingale Theater has yet to file the application for it, but count on "One Man's As Good As Another," an original play by theater owner John Cruncleton, to be among the contenders.
In the children’s theater category (which includes musicals), two shows have been entered, and they’re both from the city-run Clark Theatre - "Romeo and Juliet" from November and February's "The Sound of Music."
To submit
The Tulsa Awards for Theatre Excellence committee is accepting entries from artists to design and create the award, which will be presented to the year's most outstanding nonmusical theater production from Tulsa area groups.
Deadline is April 20. The competition is open to any Oklahoma artist, and up to three illustrated concepts or pieces may be submitted.
The winning design will earn the artist $2,000. A winner will be announced May 1.